


love, (no) expectation

by rainny_days



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, Protective Siblings, Sibling Love, Sibling Rivalry, aelwyn Trying in her own way. sometimes, all the sibling tags babey!!, spoilers for sophmore year's finale!, the abernants making me cry for two full seasons amirite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23505025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainny_days/pseuds/rainny_days
Summary: Adaine and Aelwyn are sisters, and that has always meant something.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Aelwen Abernant
Comments: 18
Kudos: 134





	love, (no) expectation

**Author's Note:**

> so how 'bout those abernants?

Adaine is five years old today, and there is a party at their house.

Not for her, of course, god forbid. It’s a Hudol party of some sort, full of faculty in neat suits and students holding glasses of sparkling cider as if they were champagne. Arianwen glides from group to group, one hand firmly on Aelwyn’s elbow, introducing ‘Hudol’s future valedictorian, we’re certain of it. She’s _already_ chosen a field, didn’t you know? Yes, abjurative magic, fitting for a Hudol student, don't you think?’

Aelwyn doesn’t particularly enjoy being here, but it’s expected for the eldest of the Abernants to make an appearance at these things, especially with the youngest absent.

(Nobody asks about Adaine. Arianwen does not bring her up. Aelwyn tries not to think about the sniffled sobs coming from the room across from hers.)

Her mother asks (tells) her to show them some magic, and she does. They titter and praise and shower her (her mother) with compliments, and Aelwyn soaks it in, the way she always does. She gets tired when the sun begins to fall, but keeps her eyes open. She smiles and smiles and smiles until her lips ache. She tells herself she is disappointed when people start leaving.

(You want this, she tells herself. The weight of your father’s pride, the command in your mother’s voice. 

What is love, after all, without expectation?)

*

Adaine is ten years old, and Aelwyn watches her have a panic attack for the first time.

“Why can’t you just do it _right_ ,” she asks, frustrated and arch with it, genuinely not understanding why Adaine doesn’t _get_ it, neither the spells that their parents expect them to learn, nor the unspoken rules of their home. 

(Adaine always calls mother and father cruel, and Aelwyn cannot understand why she can’t learn how to keep them kind.)

“Adaine?” she says, when her sister doesn’t snap back like she usually does. “God, what are you-”

Adaine is standing very still, and breathing very hard.

“Adaine?” Aelwyn repeats, not-scared. Adaine doesn’t answer. Aelwyn calls her name again. And again. Adaine starts curling into herself, so small. “This isn’t funny, Adaine,” she says, and takes a step forward. Adaine curls herself down even more.

“I’m getting mother and father,” Aelwyn says, swallowing the tremble in her voice. “If this is a joke, you’re going to be in terrible trouble.”

She steps back, and is stopped in place by a small hand curled into the sleeve of her blazer. Adaine doesn’t say anything, just looks up at her with big eyes. Her hand is shaking.

Aelwyn swallows, and stays.

(When her parents berate Adaine at dinner that night for not learning her basic spells, Aelwyn stays silent, and does not think of shuddering breaths and shaking hands.)

*

Adaine is thirteen years old, and she's just had a panic attack at her entrance exam. Aelwyn stands beside her, and presses her sympathy into a small, flat shape. Keeps it in the very back of her mind.

Her parents won’t acknowledge the panic attack as that, of course. It wouldn’t do for an Abernant to fall to something as- _mundane_ as a mental illness. Aelwyn herself does not acknowledge it as that, except in the quiet of her own mind, under the shields that she’s worked so hard to build.

Hudol has a surprisingly extensive selection of books on psychology, as twelve-year-old Aelwyn had discovered.

“Good job making a scene,” she says, all sharp corners.

Adaine snaps a glare at her, her hands curling into fists instead of shaking palms ( _Good_ ). “I mightn’t have done that badly,” she says, mullish even in the face of clear defeat. “The scores haven’t come out yet.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Adaine,” Aelwyn scoffs. “That little- _show_ of yours might’ve passed for magic at _Mumple_ , but Hudol?”

“Oh, yes, because Hudol holds itself to _such_ a high standard,” Adaine mimics their mother in a pitch-perfect teenage sneer. “You know what? Maybe I don’t _want_ to go to Hudol, did you think about that? Maybe I didn’t have a _choice_.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of choices now,” Aelwyn says, curving her lips just so. “I suppose you’ll be going to, what, _Augefort_?”

Their parents pull up then, and Adaine gives her a glare that has long ceased to carry any betrayal in it. That has long since forgotten even the possibility of asking her big sister for help. Aelwyn tells herself that she is grateful for it.

“Maybe I _will_ ,” Adaine snaps, and locks her entire body into battle-ready stillness as she prepares to face her parents.

*

Adaine is fourteen, and Aelwyn plants a seed in her ear, heart hammering in her chest as she messages Kalvaxus to say that it’s done-

*

Adaine is fourteen, and she _screams_ as she tries to punch Aelwyn, and Aelwyn almost laughs when she thinks “ _If she’s mad_ now _-”_

*

Adaine is fourteen, and Aelwyn will only ever see her that way, because her parents are looking at her with disappointed eyes, and she knows that she cannot keep them kind anymore-

*

Adaine is fourteen ( _or fifteen, or ten, or five_ ), and Aelwyn cannot remember anything but she can remember well enough to ask her mother if she managed to kill Kalva- to kill Golden- to kill that dragon, after all.

Her mother does not answer, and the ball keeps rotating, and she is so very tired.

*

Adaine is fifteen, and she forgives Aelwyn.

Adaine is fifteen, and she forgives Aelwyn.

Adaine is fifteen, and she forgives Aelwyn.

Adaine is fifteen-

She loses her track of thought.

*

Adaine is fifteen and in the middle of the nightmare forest.

“You know what to do,” her father says, and Aelwyn looks at Adaine, who looks back at her with steady, brave eyes.

Aelwyn looks at her hands, pressed against the barrier of the bubble, and sees that they are shaking. _She’s no bigger than she was back then_ , she thinks, and the words fall out of her mouth without her permission.

“But she’s a _baby_!”

*

Adaine is not fifteen, because she is not anything, because she is cold and still and in Aelwyn’s arms.

It is not Adaine there, some part of Aelwyn thinks, because Adaine cannot be- so still, so broken, so defeated. She puts her hands over the wound in Adaine’s chest, and is as useless as she was when Adaine was being hurt by their parents, when she had her panic attacks, when she was being broken by everything that should’ve comforted her. 

She hears hooves scrape the steps above her, and looks at the unicorn that killed her sister, its horn still slick with her blood. She lifts the hand that isn’t holding her baby sister, and a thousand fractals spin into life around her.

 _Adaine is five years old and crying- Adaine is ten years old and holding Aelwyn’s sleeve- Adaine is thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and always,_ always _Aelwyn’s sister-_

“ _Get out of this world_ ,” she commands, and every image shatters around her.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to tumblr user @flappysaurusrex for the idea! if anyone else has any abernant (or general fh) prompts, hmu at [@tweetsongs](https://tweetsongs.tumblr.com/)
> 
> god bless everyone writing about these sad sibs


End file.
